Goldsmiths and NFTS join to create game innovations

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Partnership to bring 'cross fertilisation of minds, skills and creativity'

Goldsmiths College and the National Film and Television School (NFTS) have begun a partnership to realise ground-breaking innovations in games.

The partnership will bring together their different teaching disciplines, skills, facilities and students to produce original games.

The scheme, called Games++, will combine the creative talent from the NFTS’ MA Games Design and Development with the technical expertise of students from the MSc in Computer Games and Entertainment at Goldsmiths.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity to bring together the skills and mindsets of Goldsmiths’ talented technical coders with the imaginative storytelling and games design creativity of the NFTS to produce what we expect to be some exciting projects,” said NFTS head of games Jon Weinbren.

“This partnership is like two pieces of the jigsaw fitting together. We’re taking our two specialist courses and merging the best each can offer in a way that we believe will bring about a cross fertilisation of minds, skills and creativity to produce next generation games that engage, edify and hopefully amaze.”

Professor William Latham, co-director and co-founder of the MSc Computer Games and Entertainment at Goldsmiths, added: “The key to this partnership is our common denominator – a desire to make our programmes flow through into the industry, giving our students the launch pad they need to start successful careers.”

Beginning in early 2013, selected students will partner on an original games project of their choice, share skills, attend masterclasses and workshops from industry professionals, as well as engage in industry events and, where possible, studio visits.

NFTS students will generate the initial ideas and design concepts for the games, bringing in a range of multi-disciplinary talent from across its film and TV specialisms. The games ideas will be presented to the Computer Games and Entertainment students at Goldsmiths early on, when the cross-institutional partnership teams will be formed. The NFTS and Goldsmiths leads on each team are to have joint responsibility for further design, development, implementation and delivery within budget and schedule.

At the end of the programme, they will share their projects with a panel of industry experts for feedback.Funding will be provided for the games by the NFTS graduate project funding scheme.

The scheme will begin in February 2013 with first delivery of titles in December the same year.